


A First Time For Everything

by Scylla87



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, First Time, Insecurity, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Sharing a Bed, growing back together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25085419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla87/pseuds/Scylla87
Summary: They were always going to get here eventually. After months of sharing a bed to keep the nightmares at bay, Katniss and Peeta find there are other things they could be doing in bed together.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 239





	A First Time For Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! I thought I was never going to get through this one. It took me days, which is unlike me. I've never written a Everlark fic before, so I am a little nervous how it went. Hopefully you guys all like it. Thank you so much for reading!!!! Please, please, please let me know what you think.

A First Time for Everything:

Katniss froze as she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror. It had been a year since she had dared to look, really look, and the sight of herself was almost shocking. Before her stood not the girl who had painstakingly studied her body in the mirror, trying to memorize the parts that were actually her in the moments before her prep team came in and scrubbed away every imperfection, but a slightly scarred woman wearing a puzzled frown.

Of course, she had known that she had scars, places where the skin grafts had not completely obliterated the burns she had suffered when the bombs went off. She had seen pieces of some of them here and there when she was in the shower. At first they had been hard to look at without crying, without retreating back into that place of numbness she had inhabited in those first few months after the only completely good and pure thing she had ever had in this world ceased to be, but it had become easier in time, her feelings at the sight of them becoming less hollow. She barely gave them a glance now as her eyes scanned the image in front of her.

The woman in the mirror was still slight of stature but no longer angular and lean. A generous layer of flesh covered parts of her that were once painfully prominent, her ribs, her collarbone, her hips. In the months since she had allowed herself to begin moving forward, it had been difficult not to notice some of the physical changes she had undergone, but this was the first time she had been confronted with the visual evidence of them. Her eyes roamed over her reflection and thought back to the soft yellow dress she had worn after her first games, the one with the carefully placed padding to give her curves that a lifetime of near starvation had robbed her of. She wouldn’t need that padding now. In fact, there was rather more than the padding had ever accounted for in the significant swell of her breasts. The size of them surprised her. How had she managed to miss their explosion? Surely, she should have noticed. Turning to the side only made them look bigger, increasing her frown. No wonder the new bras she’d broken down and ordered hadn’t fit. Was this what she was meant to look like with a steady diet and adequate nutrition? Suddenly, she found she couldn’t look at herself anymore, the desire to be far away from the image overwhelming her. With her back to the mirror, she hastily dressed for bed and left the bathroom behind.

Upon entering her bedroom, she was confronted by another change. One side of her bed, the side closest to the door, was already occupied by a man. The only part of him visible from where she stood was his bare back, muscular and dotted with burn scars, but that was enough for her to identify him. Even so, her eyes drifted lower just to confirm. Curled up in the hollow where the lower half of his left leg should be was Buttercup. The sight made her heart rate quicken. She hadn’t expected to find him here.

For a long time after he came back, she had fought down the urge to ask him to stay with her. The request had always seemed so selfish, so inconsiderate of his every day struggle to heal and understand their relationship. But one night, she had found that she couldn’t keep the words in anymore. She had broken down and asked, and the second the words had left her lips, she had regretted them, regretted that she could never take them back. That night, he had agreed but laid stiffly beside her the whole time, limiting the parts of his body that touched her own. The next morning, she felt the deepest shame for what she had done. She vowed never to ask him again, but again her resolve had broken. And again. And again. And again. It got easier in time. With each asking, the distance between them began to narrow, small subtle changes she hadn’t noticed at first began to become glaringly obvious. The first time he took his prosthetic leg off before bed. The first time he climbed beneath the blankets with her. The first time his arm had tentatively snaked around her waist. And now another first: the first time he had climbed into her bed without her having to ask. Not only that, but he had fallen asleep on the same side he always slept on when she did break down and ask, almost like he had a preassigned side of the bed, her bed. She didn’t know the name of the feeling that settled into her chest at the realization of this latest development, but it made her feel warm and tingly all the way down to her toes. Rising up from deep in her happiest memories were images of her parents on those nights she’d crawl into bed with them, always curling up next to her father. Long ago, she had assumed that she’d always chosen him because he made her feel safer than her mother, because only he could quiet her bad dreams, but another reason seemed just as likely now, he was always closer, always on the side of the bed closest to her own. And once he was gone, there was always that space there next to her mother. Sometimes Prim would fill it, crawling in next to their mother when she had her own bad dreams, but her mother never filled it, never gave herself the little extra room that having a bed to herself afforded her. And hadn’t Katniss begun doing something similar? How many times had she woken up alone on the mornings when Peeta hadn’t spent the night to find herself scrunched up on the side of the bed closest to the wall, leaving more than enough room for his body to fit in beside her? The thought brought a million questions to her mind, none of which she was equipped to answer. She was struck by a sudden urge to talk to her mother about this, an urge she hadn’t had in years. The realization was just jarring enough that it pushed the questions from her mind for the time being. How would she have even begun to ask her mother anyway? They talked more frequently now, but they had hardly gotten to the point where Katniss could admit that she regularly had a boy sharing her bed. The very thought of that conversation made her shutter, and she had to work hard to push it from her mind.

With a deep sigh she took a tentative step toward the bed at last. Careful not to wake him up, she made her way around to her side and eased in beside him. He had left her plenty of room, but she curled up next to him all the same, lying her head on his back like she had done the last time they had done this. Of late, this had become the most common way they slept, him on his stomach, her on her side with her head on his back. She sighed contentedly, finding it was surprisingly easy to settle in beside him and let the steady rhythm of his breathing relax her just to the edge of sleep. All the questions that were plaguing her seemed to float away as pure contentment enveloped her. But just as she was about to fall asleep, his back vibrated against her cheek as he spoke. “Everything alright? You were in the bathroom a long time.”

For a moment, the image of her reflection in the bathroom mirror worked its way into her mind; she opened her eyes to banish it. Something about the image was connected to him in her mind, but she couldn’t think of that now, or ever. “Yeah,” she whispered, “everything is fine.” It was a lie, though a small one, a lie all the same.

If he suspected she wasn’t being truthful, he let the matter go. He hummed softly in response, the sound a kind of tingle against her ear, and his breathing seemed to deepen again as the grasping hands of sleep began to pull him back under. But the easy sleep she had been about to slip into moments before was suddenly very elusive. Her mind buzzed hotly, all those questions coming back to the fore. And others, other questions plagued her now. Questions of why he was here and if he was alright. Those questions, like all the others, never made it to her lips. A deep fear overcame her. What if he misunderstood and thought she didn’t want him here? What if he got up and went home, leaving her all alone? The thought terrified her. “Are you sure everything’s alright?” he asked with a sigh.

As he spoke, she became painful aware that her body had tensed against him, like she was poised to take flight at any moment. She tried to relax again, but the fear still coursed through her. In the months since the first time she had asked him to stay, she had been trying to work on being more honest with him, more open. He was still the one who was much better with words, and there were still frequent misunderstandings, where the words she wanted to say never came out right, but slowly she had gotten better at telling him many of the things she had always been too afraid to tell him. So, she took a deep breath and admitted, “I want to ask you something, but I’m afraid that you will leave.”

The only answer was a deep attentive silence. She did not rush to fill it. This was an established routine by this point, born out of his first days back when he was still struggling to make sense of the conflicting memories of her in his head. Now that he knew a little more about her eternal struggle for the right words to say, no matter how long it took her to find the words, Peeta would wait patiently for her to find them. The understanding sometimes made it worse, made the words more elusive, the fear of saying the wrong thing all the greater. She tried to pick her words carefully, each version of the question seeming worse than the last. Eventually, she decided it would be best to phrase it as a confession. “I was surprised to find you still here.”

The way that his back tensed beneath her, it was clear that wasn’t quite the right thing to say, but she couldn’t take the words back now and could have done much worse. After a moment she tacked on the question, “Is everything alright?”

There were other things she longed to say, a desire to try and explain herself consuming her, but she had learned that sometimes saying too much was worse than saying too little. The best course of action was generally to wait for him to ask her to explain further. After what felt like several minutes he did, “It would be okay if something were wrong?”

She sensed a potential landmine in front of her. There was another question lurking under the surface of the one that he had asked, and she would need to be very careful how she answered that one. Of course, that was a problem. The question he was really asking was one she was wondering about herself. Is it okay to sleep together simply because they wanted to? The question was unanswerable. “If something were wrong, you need only ask.”

It was clear that she hadn’t given him the answer that he was looking for. He shifted slightly beneath her and the silence that fell between them was deafening. In the long moments that passed, Katniss was left with the questions that burned through her mind. She had no hope of answering them, not alone. But she wasn’t alone. The thought terrified her more than any other. How could she even begin to unpack the questions that were already beginning to haunt her? A million suggestions presented themselves, and naturally, she chose the absolute worst. “I don’t think we’re friends.”

She could have kicked herself the second the words escaped her. There was a very charged moment where she was forced to confront the horror of what she’d done. “Only friends,” she muttered. It was the only thing she could get her tongue to mutter. She said it over and over, unable to stop until suddenly even those words could not escape her and all that came out when she opened her mouth was an inarticulate cry. Buttercup hissed in response, and she was vaguely aware of the thud made by him jumping off the bed as another cry escaped her.

Tears were hot in her eyes, but the thought that she was actually crying did not occur to her. The only knowledge she had was of the words, the ones that welled up inside of her and drug her down. They wanted to escape her, but she couldn’t utter them, not in the way they needed to be said, not in a way that he would understand. She’d never be able to make him understand. Not with words. Never with words. Her thoughts whirled and spun as she lifted her head off him, a desperate madness overtaking her. Without thinking she brought her lips down and pressed them against his back. She held herself there for a moment, body shaking with the deep, guttural sobs that consumed her, and then she kissed him again. His body shifted beneath her, and a wave of hopelessness crashed over her. This was it; he was leaving her. She moved away from him so he could go, but as he turned, he grabbed her, pulling her trembling body against his own. For the longest time he just held her as she sobbed. Gradually, she stopped shaking, her sobs fading away, but he continued to hold her long after her crying had subsided.

After a moment, he began to speak, “We had just finished dinner. You had cooked this time, so I was doing the dishes. You said, ‘I’m going to go take a shower.’ I wasn’t sure what you meant for me to do. So, I finished the dishes and came to bed.”

“Our bed,” she whispered, her words muffled by his chest.

For the briefest moment he tensed against her, and then just as quickly as the moment came it passed. “The first time you asked me to stay, I wanted to say no.” He had told her this part before, but she didn’t interrupt. “It was so hard. I was terrified that I would accidentally hurt you. I still have no idea how I got through it, but afterward, I kept waiting for you to ask me again. I promised myself that the next time I would hold you, like in the memories from the train.” He fell quiet for a long time before he whispered, “I had to promise myself more than once before I could do it, but when I did, I never wanted to let you go.” Almost as if to strengthen his words, he squeezed her to himself a little bit tighter. “Every time we’d have dinner after that, I would wait for you to ask me to stay.”

There had been so many nights the words had been on the tip of her tongue and she had stopped herself from uttering them for fear she was asking too much of him. “Tonight,” she confessed, “I was surprised that you had stayed, but I was glad. I wanted you to stay.”

The word felt so unfamiliar on her tongue. A fact he seemed to notice. “Wanted?” he clarified.

For a second, she could only nod her head against his chest. She couldn’t remember the specific moment it had happened, but deep down she knew that it was there, that it was real. “I want you to stay every night,” she whispered. “Even when I don’t ask you; even when I don’t actively think about it. I’m just always afraid that I ask too much.”

He hummed softly deep in his chest, the confession hanging in the air between them. “Friends do not want to sleep together like this, like we do.” It was not a question; it was a simple statement of fact. And an assurance that earlier he had understood what she had been trying to say.

But if they weren’t friends, what were they? The question seemed to vibrate between them. She had never been able to sort through the various maze of feelings she had for him, even before he had been captured by the Capital. Now it seemed all the harder. Unable to find an answer to the question, she opted for a confession instead, “I have never slept with anyone else but you.” And Prim, but she didn’t need to specify that for him to understand what she was trying to say.

His long silence was hard to read. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost detached, but she sensed the answer was important to him. “So that first night on the train, when you asked me to stay with you…”

She was struck by a momentary flash of annoyance as the question trailed off. The feeling was old and well worn, her gut reaction to everyone else’s opinions about how she felt about the man beside her. How dare he question her? Accuse her of not being truthful? It took everything she had not to bite back at him in the moment. In the end, it was the reminder that he was still trying to sort through the jumble of memories the Capital had left him with that helped her hold her tongue. He wasn’t accusing; he was simply trying to make sense of the latest piece of their past she had handed him. She took a deep breath and said, “I wouldn’t have asked anyone else.”

For the time being that appeared to be all the clarification that he needed and let the topic drop. Deep down, she was relieved. There were other confessions heavily linked to that one, many of them still half formed in her mind, that she wasn’t quite ready to part with. One day, she hoped to be able to answer all his questions, but that day had yet to come.

He gave a soft sigh and shifted on the bed beside her. “I sometimes think about kissing you.”

A confession for a confession. Still, the admission gave her pause. He hadn’t said he wanted to kiss her, just that he had been thinking about it. “We used to kiss,” she supplied, unsure what else to say.

He cleared his throat, shifting again. There was a sudden uneasiness in the way that he was holding her. “Did you want to kiss me?” His tone wasn’t accusatory or even hopeful like it once might have been but wary.

“Not the first time,” she admitted. “I didn’t necessarily not want to kiss you, but it wasn’t really a kissing kind of moment. I figured Haymitch wanted me to kiss you, and you’d made this stupid joke when we were down by the stream about how we were supposed to be madly in love and to feel free to kiss you anytime. So I kissed you. I wasn’t really sure about it afterward. Your lips were all hot from the fever.”

“You’ve thought a lot about it then,” he replied in an even tone.

She shrugged. “I’d never kissed a boy before.”

Suddenly he pulled back to look at her, clearly surprised. “I figured…” he began to say, but as she looked up at him, another old impulse overcame her, one she didn’t even try to fight. She tilted her head up and captured his lips.

The brushing of their lips was more an experiment than a kiss, over almost as soon as it began. She pulled back to look at him, frantically searching his face for some sign of what he was thinking. There was a wildness in his eyes that she wasn’t sure how to categorize. A sudden fear swept over her. What if it had been too soon? She wanted to apologize, wanted to explain, but before she could speak, he kissed her again.

His lips against her own were soft, his kisses slow. Understanding crept through her. When he said that he had been thinking about kissing her, he had meant this. Not some half-remembered moment in the past, but the present and maybe even the future. We used to kiss; we’re kissing now. His tongue slid past her lips, and she realized she had missed this. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to kiss him that first time, but she remembered just as vividly the first time she had wanted to keep kissing him. That intensive ravenous hunger that would not abate. His lips were not enough to sate it. She needed more. Desperation seized her, and she never wanted to stop. It was like on the beach, there was nothing to stop them. Except… Except… She pulled away from him suddenly, her heart beating wildly, breath coming out in panicked gasps. “Katniss,” he said concerned, “is everything alright?”

She struggled to catch her breath so she could speak. “I just… need… a minute.”

He backed away slightly as she rolled over onto her back. “I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he whispered.

Her mind whirled as understanding began to sweep over her. She could hear the regret in his voice, the sadness, and she realized that she would have to explain. No matter how hard the words, she would have to find a way to say them. To not even try would hurt him, and that was the last thing she ever wanted to do. She reached out to him, gripping his arm tighter than necessary in her desperation. “I need to say something,” she said carefully. “It is difficult to talk about, and I may not do well.”

She glanced over at him to see if he understood. When he nodded, she began, “I remember the first real kiss we ever had.” The second she said it, she regretted her choice of words. One sentence in and she was already having to backtrack. “I do not mean real as if the others did not happen. Because they did. I mean real as in you kissed me, and I kissed you. And I wanted to keep kissing you, but my head started bleeding and you made me lie down.” Oddly, she heard an embarrassed chuckle escape her lips and suddenly couldn’t look at him anymore. “It happened again on the beach when we were supposed to be on guard duty. I didn’t know what it meant other than that I wanted to kiss you. I didn’t have the words to describe how I felt or why. But I understand better now, I think.” She had a sudden urge to flee instead of continuing. “When you kissed me tonight, I… There is nothing to stop us. There are no cameras or people watching.” Her eyes flicked to him quickly and then away again. “We are in a bed.”

When she got up the courage to glance back over at him, his expression was puzzledly amused. “And you thought that I might want to have sex?”

She opened her mouth a few times, trying to get the words out. “I thought I might want to have sex.” By the look on his face, it was the first thing she’d said that night that truly shocked him. “And that scares me. I’m not good with wanting new things. Especially when it comes to you. I keep thinking that I will say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and ruin whatever this is. I don’t even know if you feel the same way about it.”

A deep frown settled on his features as she finished speaking. “I was trying to get up the nerve to kiss you. I wasn’t sure if kissing and sharing a bed went together.”

He frowned even deeper like that wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, but she nodded vigorously to show she understood. “We kiss in the arena, on TV, in front of people; We don’t kiss in bed. But is that a rule, or just the way things used to be?”

Peeta nodded for a moment, his eyes drifting away from her nervously. “If we are being honest, I do feel the same.”

She couldn’t help but return his sheepish grin. With a suddenly clarity the connection between her reflection in the mirror and him was sharp in her mind. “I don’t look like I used to,” she whispered faintly. “You might change your mind.”

The look he gave her was thoughtful. “I would like to keep kissing you for as long as you’ll let me. I didn’t have any plans past that.” He gave her another sheepish grin. “Though I have considered doing more than kissing you. Quite a lot lately.”

She thought it was the first time she’d ever really seen him embarrassed. Not that she could blame him. It was difficult to enough keep her own mortification to a minimum. There was a funny feeling in her stomach similar to what she had felt while she was kissing him. She felt kind of tingly again but also a little apprehensive. “I bet you imagine I look like I did on the beach.”

“I know that you look different than that now. I try to imagine you as you are, as best I can. Your scars don’t bother me. Or they do, but they don’t make me want you less.”

Her eyes flitted away again. “That’s not really what I meant. It’s not just the scars that’s different. What if what you imagined is better than the real thing?” She groaned loudly. “I hate this.” He barely managed to stifle a laugh, and she hated him too. “I’m serious. It’s not funny.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I promise not to laugh anymore.” He couldn’t keep the wide grin off his face though. “You know, there is only way to be sure that I would enjoy seeing you naked.”

An involuntary snort of laughter filled the air, the sheer shock of his words exploding out of her. Doubts settled in through every part of her, and she was suddenly very aware just how little clothing they were wearing already. There was at most four items of clothing between them if Peeta was wearing pants. Her mind flashed back to the last time they had shared a bed. Three items of clothing between them. She felt her cheeks heat up at the knowledge. When had they gotten so comfortable that they were sleeping together wearing practically nothing at all? Now she thought of it, the idea shocked her. Of course, she hadn’t known that he was in her bed when she got dressed for bed, but she also hadn’t thought anything at all about climbing into bed with him wearing only her underwear and an old shirt. She glanced over at him again. “Maybe not yet,” she told him carefully.

He nodded. “Can I kiss you again?”

The idea made her nervous, but she nodded. He leaned forward slowly, his lips just barely touching her own. The lack of hurry in which he deepened their kiss surprised her given what they had just been discussing. He did not kiss her with the sense of desperation she felt creeping into her bones but like they had all the time in the world. And she supposed that they did. There was nothing to stop them from kissing again tomorrow or any of the days after that. The thought sent a thrill through her. She could kiss him until unconsciousness and then wake up to his lips again come morning. The hunger in her growled at the thought, stretching and growing to fill every part of her. She rolled back into him, deepening their kiss. Her wildness and desperation took over. They had all the time in the world, but it wasn’t enough. She never wanted this to stop. And then suddenly, they weren’t kissing anymore. He pulled away from her with a sigh and rested his forehead against her own. His breathing was ragged, but the grin on his face was unmistakable as he reached up to cup her jaw. “I should have asked to kiss you sooner. Much sooner.” He grinned almost sheepishly again. “I want to kiss you for the rest of my life. If you’ll allow it. Please say that you’ll allow it.” Words completely failed her, so she nodded vigorously until his lips seized hers again.

This time they were infinitely more desperate, not just with their kisses but with every other part of them. His thumb ran along her jaw; her fingers twisted in his hair. None of their kisses had ever been like this before. She was overcome with the desire to touch every part of him and what little distance there had been between their bodies vanished. Even then they were not close enough; their kisses were not enough. The hand that cupped her face slid lower, fingers tracing the curve of her neck, the line of her collarbone. Their lips brushed one final time before they reluctantly broke apart. Peeta looked down at her uncertainly for a moment before running his thumb ever so faintly along the shell of her breast.

Katniss gasped softly, and then nodded. He repeated the motion, a little firmer this time, making her squirm beneath him. After a few more strokes, he shifted his hand to cup her more fully. The sensation was strange but also exhilarating. No one had ever touched her like this before. It felt nice, but she wasn’t sure if she liked it any better than kissing. Until his thumb brushed across her nipple and her stomach fluttered. “Again,” she requested in a breathless voice.

He circled her nipple again, the fabric of her shirt brushing across the sensitive area in a way that made her gasp. She didn’t need to ask him to do it a third time or a fourth. He was happy to oblige her as many times as she needed. As he worked, a warmth spread between her thighs, and she was overcome with a desire to kiss him. Her lips sought his out hungrily, their bodies coming together as they picked up where they’d left off. Something hard twitched against her thigh, and even as inexperienced as she was, she realized it was arousal. The knowledge made her bolder. She moved just a fraction of an inch away. Her lips still brushed against his as she spoke, “You could touch me if you wanted.”

He leaned forward and kissed her softly as the hand on her breast moved lower and slid beneath her shirt. The feel of his fingers along her bare skin both terrified and excited her. She wanted more and yet it was also too much. His hand slid higher until he was cupping her breast. The second he made contact he broke their kiss to look at her. “Is this okay?” he asked, as he massaged her gently. She barely had time to nod before he was moving his hand even higher. “What about this?” His thumb brushed across her nipple again, and all she could do was moan. “And this?” he whispered as he ever so gently pinched her instead.

She let out a breathy gasp, suddenly very warm and wet between her thighs. “Why’d you do that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just something I wanted to try.”

“Well do it again,” she murmured, unable to look at him as she spoke.

He chuckled lightly and pinched her nipple a little harder. As she moaned, she felt him twitch against her thigh again. Apparently, she was not the only one enjoying herself.

He watched her carefully as he ran his thumb along her nipple again, round and round in circles until she started to fidget and squirm. Suddenly he pinched her nipple sharply. A loud moan escaped her, and she definitely felt him twitch. She felt herself blush at the thought and felt ridiculous about it, which only made her blush even more. “What?” he asked, laughter in his eyes.

Her own eyes flitted away again. “You just seem to be enjoying yourself is all.”

She glanced over at him, sure that he was going to be struggling not to laugh. Instead he looked momentarily confused. As she watched dawning comprehension crept across his face and he glanced between their bodies. “Oh,” he said. “I… uh… like the sounds you make.” As if to accent his point, he pinched her nipple again and made her moan.

The look in his eyes was hard to read as he gazed down at her. It almost looked like he was a little embarrassed himself. “You know,” she whispered, “I am too. Enjoying myself.”

He shot her a sheepish grin and glanced away for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was uncertain. “There was something else I wanted to try.”

He glanced at her hopefully, and it made her stomach flip. The whole idea of letting him do something else to her made her nervous, but a good kind of nervous, like when she had been waiting a long time for something and it had finally arrived. It was hard to resist the urge to look away as she nodded.

The look in his eyes reflected back her nervousness as he pulled his hand away. “You’ll have to lay on your back.”

She raised a questioning eyebrow at him but did as he asked. Once she was lying down, she looked over at him expectantly. He looked back at her uncertain and obviously nervous. Tentatively, he reached out a hand and pulled her shirt up a little until about an inch of her stomach was exposed to him. He waited a moment to see if she would object then leaned forward and kissed the newly exposed skin. Her skin tingled where his lips had touched. After a moment, he glanced up at her and then pushed her shirt a little higher and kissed her again. He repeated the pattern, exposing some skin, a kiss, checking it was still okay. Little by little, his kisses trailed up across her rib cage until one side of her shirt was rucked up just below her breast. He held her gaze for an extended period of time before he pushed the shirt higher to expose the mound. With deliberate slowness, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the very bottom curve. She squirmed beneath him as he kissed along the expanse of her breast, getting closer and closer to where she suspected he was trying to go. A hand came up to support her as he finally reached the peak. He glanced up at her as he took her nipple into his mouth. The hiss she gave was involuntary as she arched into his touch. “I like trying new things,” she whispered as his tongue flicked along the nub.

He grinned up at her as he slipped his other hand beneath what remained of her shirt to find her other breast. His lips closed back down around her, sucking gently as he found her other nipple and pinched it. A loud moan fell from her lips and he repeated the motion. She was definitely wet now. Her lips parted to tell him, but all she could do was groan. His mouth shifted, kissing around her nipple and over the curve of her breast. “You sound so good,” he whispered against her. As he spoke, he tweaked her nipple again to make her moan.

She reached out to him, patting her hand against his chest. Every nerve in her body felt like it was on fire. She wanted to know if he felt the same, but their position made it difficult to tell. Her hand slid lower, and he glanced up at her questioningly. “Can I touch you?”

The expression on his face was unreadable as he nodded. Her hand shook a little as it passed over the little patch of hair on his lower stomach and continued downward until it rested against the bulge in his shorts. The neutral expression he wore shattered as she touched him, a loud hiss escaping his lips. “Hmm,” she hummed to him, suddenly bold despite her nervousness. “I like how you sound too.”

She wasn’t sure what to do now that she had a hold of him, so she simply ran her hand along him and was rewarded with another hiss. Her fingers slid a little higher and brushed against a wet spot just above his tip. “Oh,” she moaned, “you get wet too.” She brushed her thumb against the wet spot again. A flash of boldness seized her tongue. “Though not as wet as me.”

He groaned at her words and his hips bucked into her hand. For a moment, his eyes even flicked down between her legs before he seemed to think better of it. “Katniss,” he whispered, eyes closed and face pained.

On a wave of sheer nerve, she slipped her hand down the waistband of his underwear and wrapped her hand around his cock. His eyes snapped open in surprise. “Peeta,” she said, trying her best to look and sound completely innocent, “I think I want to have sex.”

She could see the war going on behind his eyes and wondered if she’d gone too far. His mouth opened a couple of time but no words came out. Finally, he asked, “You think or you know?”

“I know.”

He nodded, his expression conflicted as he reached down and pulled her hand away from him. With a sigh, he rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. She wanted to reach out to him but wasn’t sure if it would be alright. “Do you want to?” she asked instead.

He sounded uncertain as he answered, “I do.” His eyes flicked over to her again. “I’m afraid you might regret it afterward.”

“I won’t,” she assured him. “Though, admittedly I wasn’t really sure what to do with…” She gestured to the obvious bulge in his pants.

To her horror, he actually laughed. Not a mean-spirited laugh, but it still made her cheeks color. At least he had the decency to look chagrined when he caught sight of her expression. “I can show you,” he said, unable to contain his grin.

She nodded to give him the go ahead but was almost immediately mortified when he went to take off his shorts. It was irrational, she knew, and she just barely contained her look of horror as he struggled to pull them off while laying down. At last he managed to find a way and discarded them with a huff. “That would have been a lot smoother if I still had both my legs. Gone also are the days when I could put pants on standing up.”

He shot her a sheepish grin, and she couldn’t help but laugh. The tension eased a little between them, and after a moment she was even able to flick her eyes downwards to take him in. She tried to fight the blush that colored her cheeks as she finally saw all of him. His cock stood at attention nestled in a patch of blond hair slightly darker than the hair on his head. Slowly, she reached out and wrapped her hand around his shaft. “You said that you would show me,” she said, in what she hoped was a matter-of-fact kind of voice.

A hand came down and wrapped around her own, guiding her down to where the hair around his base faintly tickled her hand and then back up again. Her hand came away wet as it circled his tip and the trip back down to his base was a little easier. “Like this?” she asked, glancing back up at him. The slightly pained expression on his face was answer enough. “Are there other things you like?”

He nodded. “You… uh…” His words dissolved into a pleasant groan. “You can grip harder.” He demonstrated by squeezing her hand tighter before pulling it back up toward his head. His jaw clenched to muffle a new groan. For a moment he was obviously struggling to keep the lesson on track. He held their hands still, breathing deeply a few times in order to calm down. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “I’ve never had anyone else touch me.”

The confession startled her. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be as inexperienced as she was, or at least nearly so. The realization made her feel a little braver and she curled up just a little bit closer to him. After a moment he seemed to have regained some of his composure and slid their hands down again. “There is also this thing you can do with your wrist.” He pulled her hand all the way down to his base and then twisted their hands around him rapidly. “Like that,” he mumbled after a barely stifled groan. Their eyes meet for a second as he directed her hand back along his shaft. He unlocked his hand from hers and directed her thumb along the tip until it brushed along something wet. A sudden embarrassed look crossed his face. “I’m also really sensitive right around the top.”

He directed her fingers all along his tip, showing her the best places to touch him with special emphasis just beneath where his head met the shaft. She watched him leak a little more as she touched him there, but after a few brushes of her fingers he stopped her with a groan. “Is that all?” she asked him as he fought to regain control.

“For now.” He glanced over at her and smiled faintly. “I’m sure we’ll discover other things I like eventually. Things I haven’t discovered or can’t do to myself.”

The prospect of that intrigued her. “What kinds of things?”

There was no denying that he looked embarrassed. “Not anything we need to talk about now.”

She shot him a mischievous look and used one of the tricks he’d taught her. He groaned loudly as she twisted her wrist around his base, tugging faintly upward. “I’ve created a monster,” he muttered.

“Yes,” she teased, “You were an exceptionally good teacher.” She repeated the motion. “Now tell me.”

“It’s not anything I’m asking you to do,” he clarified. “But I have heard that you can use your mouth instead.”

She felt her eyes widen with shock but said nothing. He chuckled at her expression all the same. As he laughed his eyes roamed over her again. “It occurs to me that you’re slightly overdressed for the occasion,” he said mischievously.

Her own eyes flicked down to her severely disheveled but still clothed appearance. Her nervousness flooded back, but she managed to ignore it long enough to pull her shirt over her head and toss it over the side of the bed. That was as far as she got before he pulled her into a kiss.

Her tongue instantly found his own as his hand roamed down her sides. Distantly she hoped that he was going to play with her breasts again, but his hand kept slipping lower until his fingers tangled in the waistband of her underwear. She had barely a moment to realize what he was about to do before he was sliding them down her thighs. The fabric tangled around her ankles as he struggled to get them off without breaking their kiss, and then they were off. She pulled away from him with a panicked gasp, her heart racing. A sudden terror seized her as his eyes took her in, lingering on the dark patch of hair between her thighs. “Okay?” she asked uncertainly.

“Better.”

His eyes flicked back up to her face and there was no mistaking his grin. He reached out to her, and she crawled into his arms without question. Their lips brushed together faintly a few times before his rested his forehead against her own. They were so close that she could feel his breath on her face as he slid his hand between her legs. A kind of nervous hiccup escaped her, but she didn’t stop him from probing deeper. His fingers brushed across her lips almost hesitantly. She thought that she would burn up from the anticipation, and then suddenly his fingers pressed past her lips. “Oh,” he said as she moaned softly, “I didn’t expect you to be that wet.”

She sighed contently as his fingers brushed over her slowly. He watched her uncertainly, clearly not sure he was touching her correctly. Until he was very much touching her the way she needed. She reached down and grabbed a hold of his wrist. “There,” she told him breathlessly.

He rubbed his fingers along the spot again, and she could actually feel herself getting wetter. Her thighs parted further as she rolled onto her back. To her dismay, his fingers slid lower, abandoning the spot to circle around her opening. Slowly two fingers slid inside of her. He pushed them far inside of her and then slowly pulled them out again. As he pushed them back inside of her, he twisted his wrist so his thumb could worry the spot she liked so much once more. Her walls fluttered around his fingers with every stroke. She moaned softly, something building deep inside of her. He slid his fingers out of her momentarily, only to slip them back in with three instead of two. The pleasure ebbed slightly as her body adjusted to the intrusion, but soon he was curling his fingers inside of her and she was fluttering around them once more. She was delirious with the feeling building within her. Between his fingers inside of her and the steady motion of his thumb, her body felt as taunt as a bowstring. Any second she might snap. He pressed his thumb down a little harder and something broke within her. A loud groan echoed through the room as wave after wave of pleasure enveloped her. “What the hell was that?” she gasped as the ripples began to fade.

He chuckled a little, a dazed expression on his face as he watched her. “That was an orgasm. If we’re still being honest, I’ve been thinking about giving you one for a while now. I never imagined you’d look like that though. Or sound like that, for that matter. Just remind me next time to try it with my mouth.”

She felt suddenly self-conscious under his gaze. “That would be…” As usual, words failed her.

But he didn’t seem to mind if the way he grinned at her was any indication. His hand slid out from between her thighs and he shifted a little beside her. “You can still change your mind.”

Shaking her head was the easiest thing she’d done that night. “No, I want to. I want to be with you. Unless… Have you changed your mind?”

He shot her another sheepish grin. “Never.”

She grinned back and him as she leaned forward and kissed him. The desperation was back as their tongues and their bodies fought for dominance. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him on top of her as her back hit the mattress. She pulled away to look up at him hovering over her. With a sudden clarity it was clear that this was always meant to happen. She shifted beneath him, excited and nervous and ready to take this next step with him. “Peeta,” she whispered, hands going up to cup his face. “Please.”

Almost imperceptibly he nodded and reached between them. It took everything she had not to fidget as he lined himself up. Effortlessly her lips curled around the head of his cock as he looked up at her. Their eyes locked and he pushed his hips forward, sliding into her slowly. He froze there for a second just staring at her with his cock half inside her. There was a question in his eyes, one final chance to turn back. She smiled up at him, half embarrassed to admit how much she wanted him. After a moment, she wrapped her legs around his hips in invitation. He watched her for a moment longer. And then he flicked his hips forward fast and took her breath away.

It stung a little as he entered her, but she managed to cover up her wince with a groan. They had waited long enough to do this that she didn’t want to stop. Slowly, she met the rhythm of his hips as she adjusted to having him inside of her. Their eyes met as their bodies rolled together. “Okay?” he panted as he began to snap his hips a little faster.

“Better,” she whispered back.

Her walls tightened around his cock, and he groaned each time he slid out of her. One hand snaked up to circle her breast. He pinched her nipple between his fingers and she tightened around him even more. The same look of pained pleasure crossed his face as when he was teaching her how to touch him. His jaw clenched and the hand on her breast slid between them until it found the spot just above where they were joined. He barely brushed across it and her toes curled. The way her walls fluttered made him grit his teeth more, but he repeated the motion. Her release was right there on the surface, so close she could feel it. His thumb on her was frantic as his cock drove into her. She gasped loudly as another orgasm overtook her and her walls fluttered wildly. He groaned deep in his throat as his hips stuttered and lost their rhythm. Pleasure rippled through her as he snapped his hips against her one last time and froze. The look of pain eased and he moaned softly as he finally let go, his cock twitching as he came.

Their hips stopped moving, but he stayed inside of her for a moment as they locked eyes again. There was another question lurking behind his eyes. It hovered there for a moment before he whispered, “You love me. Real or not real?”

She smiled up at him almost sheepishly. “Real.”

Slowly, he pulled out of her, leaving a mixture of his come and hers across her thighs. With a soft laugh, she turned over on her side to watch him as he collapsed beside her. “Definitely my favorite time you’ve ever been in my bed.”

He turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “And here I thought you said that it was our bed.”

She looked away from him suddenly shy at the reminder of her words. “Okay then,” she muttered, “our bed.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “I wonder what we should do in our bed tomorrow night. I seem to remember there was something you wanted to do with your mouth.”

He laughed softly and pulled her to him again. As soon as she was back in his arms he leaned down and whispered, “Oh I imagine that will happen long before tomorrow night.”

She buried her grin into his chest for the briefest moment and then reached down and pulled the blankets back up around them. Curled up in his arms she found a blissful sleep awaiting her that lasted her just until dawn. The sun was just rising behind the curtains in her bedroom when Peeta dived between her thighs and she came once, twice, three times on his tongue before he slid back inside of her and she came once more on his cock.


End file.
